


“I promise I will kiss your wounds when they're hurting. Even if they're in your soul."

by carpethefanfics



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Arranged Marriage, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Forbidden Love, In Love, Post Break Up, Pureblood Marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 18:10:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15225032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carpethefanfics/pseuds/carpethefanfics
Summary: What if Andromeda had chosen pureblood marriage? What would Ted do?





	“I promise I will kiss your wounds when they're hurting. Even if they're in your soul."

**Author's Note:**

> The third piece in a timeline of four pieces I wrote for Andromeda and Ted. 
> 
> Inspired. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uTNVumfm84
> 
> Title. http://carpetheday.tumblr.com/post/154576879160/im-often-difficult-to-love-i-go-through-dark
> 
> Enjoy.

  * “ **You’re drunk** ”
  * The words come off her lips like a slap
  * Smooth, quick and blinding
  * Just as she’s always been for him
  * Just like she was before they left school
  * But she doesn’t look like that girl
  * She doesn’t look like  **Andy**
  * The dark curls aren’t drifting around her cheeks the way willow branches wave in the wind
  * His fingers don’t have that familiar itch to brush them back, to push them away
  * To see her eyes, the million shades of amber and chestnut that he always seemed to get lost in
  * Her eyes can already be seen
  * They are a walnut colour now, a deep unmoving brown
  * _This must be Andromeda_ , he thinks 
  * “Three or four drinks will not make me drunk Andy”
  * Her nickname falls from his lips and he thinks he sees her brace the vanity behind her
  * Her knuckles are stretched thin
  * The blueish veins that climb up her wrist, a place he used to place his lips, are visible 
  * Yet, she’s still standing in front of him stoic and otherworldly
  * Trying not to let him see how the sound of his voice makes her flinch
  * “You don’t look like you”
  * The white gown is old and stiff around her small frame
  * Her arms bound in the thin lace fabric
  * Her hair pinned by silver clips, ears heavy with emeralds
  * Her neck choked by the heavy pearls that seem to chain her
  * She sneers at his comment
  * Her hands smoothing out the non-existent bunching of fabric at her hips 
  * “What do you want.”
  * Now its his turn to flinch
  * _Maybe she has disappeared_ , he thinks
  * _Maybe there’s no point in this_
  * But then she moves to twist the black diamond ring around her finger and for the faintest moment her jaw clenches
  * But he sees it 
  * “I needed to see you.”
  * Even though it hadn’t been all that long since he had seen her
  * But a lot had changed since the last time they spoke in that compartment on the Hogwarts Express
  * The ring burning a whole inside him for one
  * The wedding dress, number two
  * They had gone weeks without talking back then
  * He had decided he couldn’t be the man who only got to love her when it was dark 
  * It cut him up inside to watch her walk away from him night after night
  * Nothing but whispers and the soft trailing of her fingers
  * It cut him up even more to wait with bated breath on a floor no one came to, in a corner no one came to
  * But then, when the door swung shut behind him that night, he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving it like that
  * Leaving her in that classroom with that bottle between her knees was one of the hardest things he’d ever done
  * She however seemed utterly unperturbed at the thought now
  * “Mission accomplished then, will that be all?”
  * It was like she was shooting pins and needles into his chest with every spiteful word
  * But it didn’t feel like all that spite was directed at him
  * “I needed to see you because I needed to say this before you go out there and slip that damn mask back on”
  * Maybe that came out a little more snide than he intended
  * Maybe he was a little drunk after all
  * _But how do you ask the woman you love to run away with you sober?_
  * “Excuse me?”
  * Her eyes narrowed at him
  * But he could see the dividing line between the actress on the stage and the one pulling the strings behind her eyes
  * “You’re in there Andy, and if I don’t try this now, I may never get you out”   



* * *

  * She had been staring at herself in the mirror when he walked in
  * Sitting at the silver vanity set that her mother, and her mother’s mother had sat at before her 
  * She wondered if they had  _loved_ another when they were married
  * If they had  _touched_ another that there family would not approve of
  * If they thought of them when their new husbands branded their hands, their lips, their mark on iron skin
  * She had been so lost in this thought that she had barely noticed the curtain slip open
  * But as her eyes fixed on the face in the mirror she felt all the air in her lungs turn to heavy ash
  * Broad shoulders, broad chest
  * **_Teddy_**
  * Even in her mind his name came out breathlessly 
  * She would know those eyes anywhere
  * She had always wondered how a man of such light could have eyes so dark
  * She wasn’t sure how her legs got her standing upright when they were shaking that hard
  * She was sure the harsh imprint in her hand from gripping the vanity had something to do with it 
  * She wondered again if this had happened before
  * _How often had this vanity given the Black women an extra spine?_
  * They stood in silence for what felt like ages
  * Andromeda’s fears of someone walking in, hurting him, swirling like whirlpools in her head
  * Constant and never-ending
  * So her eyes pierced him, veiling the semblance of feelings she had buried
  * And yet he could see everything
  * _He always could_
  * “You need to go”
  * She didn’t want to plead, she didn’t want to beg
  * But she hoped he would see the worry in her eyes
  * “I can’t watch you get married”
  * “You don’t have to, just go..”
  * “… I’m still in love with you”
  * And there it was
  * The last chip to crumble from the mountain of strength she thought was so unwavering inside her
  * She could feel the rumbling deep down
  * The power of a volcanic eruption, more like a rock-slide
  * “You can’t do this to me right now, not now, not after everything, Ted don’t make me do this again”
  * Her tongue ran away with the words spilling out of her
  * Her voice trembling, clinging to any resolve she had that didn’t want to be broken
  * She felt her hand clutch her stomach trying to calm the twisting and churning
  * “You left me!”
  * The words that had been living in her throat since the day she walked away ran wild
  * Since the day she had pried his hands from her own and braced the wall on her way out to hold something that would hold her back
  * His eyes go wide at the accusation
  * But his voice is gone at the way her eyes water
  * They’re glossy and horrified that she would ever utter a true emotion just as when they were in that compartment on that train all those months ago
  * “And I let you”
  * He’s sure someone is bound to come into the dressing tent at the sound of her 
  * But then he reminds himself who he’s with
  * Andromeda Black, purveyor of all things secret
  * She surely has wandlessly silenced them already
  * Keeping him hidden again like she always had
  * And it makes his blood boil 
  * Until the sound of her breaks him
  * “I tried to keep you from ever coming back!”
  * Her eyes flutter closed
  * “Why did you have to come back?”
  * He tries to quiet the urge to hold her
  * But how overwhelming it is to want to feel her pressed into him, to feel wholly himself
  * So he treads forward, slowly but surely
  * The back of her still resting against the vanity
  * And he lays his fingers against the side of her throat, her pulse racing against his palm, his thumbs brushing away the tears that have fallen
  * His fingers tickled by the few curls that rest there, that have always rested there at the base of her neck
  * She closes her eyes at the feeling
  * _This is how she should be touched_ , she thinks
  * _Every day, soft and tender, just like this_
  * “You should know by now I’ll always come for you”
  * He had told himself over and over again, your voice should be strong and coarse, should never waver
  * Before he entered the white tent outside the Manor he had wanted her to feel how he felt every time she brushed him aside like some frustration 
  * Especially on a night after she had wrapped her fingers in his hair and bruised his lips with her own
  * But he can’t
  * “I had this plan. I wanted to tell you I love you. That I was sorry for ever walking away from you. I wanted to ask you to pick me but I can’t do that anymore. Not to either of us.”
  * Staring into her eyes makes him feel like he’s in front of a firing squad
  * Each unspoken word that he sees inside her a bullet
  * “I just want to apologize now. I won’t ask you to choose me again Andy.”
  * Her eyes go wide 
  * The thought of this becoming a reality, this marriage, this future, is crashing into her all of the sudden
  * Its rushing towards her like the wave of a tsunami but her feet are being swallowed by the sand of the beach
  * She can only stand and watch as she is washed away
  * _Wait_
  * But she doesn’t hear the sound of her voice
  * Just feels the way her eyes plead 
  * “I just want you to be happy”
  * _I won’t_   _be_ , she thinks
  * _Not without you_
  * She feels his hands tense, sees his arms flex
  * “It always was hard to let you go”
  * The soft air that escapes him, the exasperation, is supposed to be a laugh she thinks 
  * But they are both much too exhausted for that
  * _Then don’t,_ she thinks
  * “Goodbye”
  * The words reverberate in the lining of the skin
  * And suddenly she can’t breathe
  * There is a weight on her chest 
  * And the pearls are tightening around her neck
  * And she’s grasping, scratching, tearing them away from her
  * “Andy what’s wrong?”
  * But the words are stuck to the side of her cheek and ground between her teeth
  * “Andy let me help”
  * But he can’t
  * He’s leaving
  * **_He’s leaving_**
  * “Andy just breathe”
  * And she’s crying
  * “I can’t do this Teddy, how did I ever think I could do this?”
  * She peers up into the golden rays of his eyes
  * “How did I ever think I could stop?”
  * She wonders how she didn’t notice she had been starving this whole time
  * How she didn’t notice she was homesick
  * “It’s you. It’s always been you. It was always going to be you.”
  * So she grips his hand tightly
  * “Let’s go”
  * [His arms feel more like home than any house ever did](http://carpetheday.tumblr.com/post/101394358235/your-arms-feel-more-like-home-than-any-house)



**Author's Note:**

> http://carpethefanfics.tumblr.com/post/175711954442/i-promise-i-will-kiss-your-wounds-when-theyre


End file.
